Reading thru the Heitz Cellar $1000 experience thread really has me thinking. Am I enjoying the wine experience more now than I did back in the 1980’s when I first got into wine? And the reality is, not really. While I now have a much bigger wine budget and am drinking better wine than then, I miss:
Epiphany wines
Experiencing new varietals (varieties) that make you go Wow!
Visiting Napa Valley when tasting was reasonable while leaving with a logo wine glass.
Looking for the newest highly rated wine from Wine Spectator (IKR)
Anticipating wine tastings
Finding that QPR to bring to a friends house
Building a SMALL cellar on a budget
Being able to experiment with purchases because prices were much more reasonable then.
Learning about wine
Writing this all actually makes me feel kind of sad.
I really miss going to Sonoma and Napa (a little less) and free styling with a couple of wineries that we would visit and making new discoveries by talking to fellow tasters, tasting room recs or just pulling into an interesting winery
You can still do this in areas like Lodi and the Sierra foothills but tasting room fees are creeping up here also.
I know what you must be saying to yourselves
If that’s the way she feels about it
Why doesn’t she just sell it all?
Oh, no, not me
I’m not ready for that final disappointment
Because I know
Just as well as I’m standing here talking to you
That when that final auction hammer falls
And I’m counting out my cash
I’ll be saying to myself
Is that all there is
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is my friend
Then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is
I used to LOVE back in the day cruising around on my day off to grocery stores, liquor stores, mom/pop wines shops to see what treasures might be found! Remember finding 1989 First Growth’s at Safeway stores around the Bay Area for $99. A local Long’s Drugs had 80/90’s Heitz Martha’s $30, Maya $40, Dunn HM $30, Dominus…got my case of 1999 Guigal CdP when it became WS WOTY for $24 per bottle there. Those days are long gone! Sigh…
In the late 90s/very early aughts, the Sam’s (Chicago) closeout bin was incredible. I’ve posted many times about getting Joly CdS for $20-25 (can’t recall exactly), any number of Jura wines for $10, and gasp 1er and GC Burgs sometimes showed up in closeouts. They also had an annual sale that was nuts. Got 95 Haut Brion for $99, 92 Haut Brion Blanc for $75, 93 Petrus for $99. Walked down the Bordeaux aisle to see a guy filling his cart with 82 Mouton for $99. This was in 1999 or 2000.
Joining WBers has simultaneously led to increased enjoyment of the wine hobby (from gained and shared knowledge) and increased wine related FOMO, knowing I was wearing diapers at the time when the wines I most want to try today could have been relatively affordable.
This discussion dredges up a long buried, but apparently not forgotten, quote from the distant past.
“Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower
We will grieve not; rather find
Strength in what remains behind.”
